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Sci-Fi Movies

'Tron' Sequel Trailer Released by Disney (arstechnica.com) 124

This October will see the release of a film that's nearly 43 years in the making, reports Ars Technica: It's difficult to underestimate the massive influence that Disney's 1982 cult science fiction film, TRON, had on both the film industry — thanks to combining live action with what were then groundbreaking visual effects rife with computer-generated imagery — and on nerd culture at large. Over the ensuing decades there has been one sequel, an animated TV series, a comic book miniseries, video games, and theme park attractions, all modeled on director Steve Lisberg's original fictional world.

Now we're getting a third installment in the film franchise: TRON: Ares, directed by Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), that serves as a standalone sequel to 2010's TRON: Legacy. Disney just released the first trailer and poster art, and while the footage is short on plot, it's got the show-stopping visuals we've come to expect from all things TRON.

The film's director says it "builds upon the legacy of cutting-edge design, technology and storytelling, according to an official statement from Disney. And here's how they describe the plot. "TRON: Ares follows a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind's first encounter with A.I. beings."

Share your thoughts in the comments. (Anyone remember playing the Tron videogame?)

The first episode of 2012's animated Tron: Uprising is available on the Disney XD YouTube channel...

'Tron' Sequel Trailer Released by Disney

Comments Filter:
  • by Westley ( 99238 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @07:42AM (#65284551) Homepage

    > It's difficult to underestimate the massive influence that Disney's 1982 cult science fiction film, TRON, had on both the film industry

    Really? As in, it had *so* little influence that in order to underestimate the influence, I'd have to estimate that it had no influence at all, or negative influence?

    I don't see why it's apparently so hard to get "it's difficult to overestimate" right here. (Obviously this isn't the sole example. It's a source of frequent frustration - with "understate/overstate" causing similar difficulties.)

    • by Westley ( 99238 )

      (I see on the article that there are comments about this, with one trying to excuse it as "The influence is so great that its greatness is very obvious, making it unlikely that anyone would believe it to be lower than the actual value." Nope, I don't buy that at all. It's just plain wrong.)

    • Kinda like "I couldn't care less" vs "I could care less"?

    • I could care less how people are butchering the English language these days.

    • by EnsilZah ( 575600 ) <<EnsilZah> <at> <Gmail.com>> on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:14AM (#65284613)

      So you're saying it's being misunderestimated?

    • The Black Hole says hold my beer.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @01:10PM (#65284957) Homepage Journal

      I'm not sure it was quite the watershed moment some people think it was. It did prove that CG could be used in movies, but the computers rendered wireframe and Disney animators then painted it, giving it that very unique look. No other movies tries to do that on anything like the scale Tron did, and it wasn't until computers could render semi realistic textures themselves that CG started to become more commonplace.

      It was a gradual process. For example, Jurassic Park had CG dinosaurs, but also a lot of animatronic ones, and guys in dinosaur costumes. The limitations of the technology were understood. Another significant moment was 2008's Iron Man, when they used a CGI suit in most shots. These day's that is pretty much standard, with the costumes being for the benefit of the actors and to provide a lighting reference for the animators. Every few years there's a panic as set photos leak out and the costumes look like something you would wear on Halloween, because people seem to forget that they are getting replaced in post.

      • by pr0nbot ( 313417 )

        I remember wondering how they did the 3D vector graphics flythrough of New York in the opening scenes of Escape from New York. Turns out, they built a physical model, painted the edges of all the buildings with luminous paint, and shot it in the dark or under UV or somesuch.

    • It's entirely possible they meant it as written.

      I went to see Tron as a kid and loved it. Nobody else at my school seemed to care. It was shown not at one of the two major cinemas in my city, but at the art house one. A new release Disney movie. At an art house cinema. Is it that weird or what?

      The graphics and animation and style weren't really replicated in anything I saw since. The audio style even today seems off.

      It was a fantastic idea and for many of those who watched it it represented putting on scree

  • by NZheretic ( 23872 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @07:44AM (#65284555) Homepage Journal
    Compared with all the AI slop that is being trust upon us, It all looks so dated.
    • by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:03AM (#65284585)

      Yeah, not one of the actors has six fingers and none of the scenes have their faces melding with a cup they're drinking out of. AI is just some aWsOmE!!1!

    • Would it help if we give the main character an extra set of knuckles on his fingers?

    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Many of the AI videos I've seen recently look pretty damned good [youtu.be]; their only consistent limitation is that they are always a series of 2-4 second long shots with no continuity or dialog, so it's more like looking through a video coffee-table photo book than watching a movie. I'm pretty confident someone will figure out how to solve that problem in due course, though, and at some point enjoyable feature-length films will be made that way.

  • Not hyped here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:02AM (#65284579)

    Tron was a very interesting release at the time - the visuals were revolutionary, the story was pretty much 'OK' and built around elements that were very common tropes at the time, but it was successful, not a world-dominating hit.

    Tron Legacy... it was just sad. "If we just do nothing and let it all wash past us, it'll be fine" was the moral. Well that's aged like milk, hasn't it? I didn't like it at the time, either. And it killed the old hero off as a sort of suicide bomber. But again, the visuals were pretty good and the soundtrack was perfect.

    This next movie I have zero faith in and it won't be dragging me into the theatre. Jared Leto being such a well-known complete asshole taints the screen - I can't watch him and see a character, I just see an asshole. Combine that with the theme and finale of the previous movie and I care just enough to post about not wanting to see this movie because it's Sunday morning and I'm awake and bored.

    • Tron was a very interesting release at the time - the visuals were revolutionary, the story was pretty much 'OK' and built around elements that were very common tropes at the time, but it was successful, not a world-dominating hit.

      Tron Legacy... it was just sad. "If we just do nothing and let it all wash past us, it'll be fine" was the moral. Well that's aged like milk, hasn't it? I didn't like it at the time, either. And it killed the old hero off as a sort of suicide bomber. But again, the visuals were pretty good and the soundtrack was perfect.

      This next movie I have zero faith in and it won't be dragging me into the theatre. Jared Leto being such a well-known complete asshole taints the screen - I can't watch him and see a character, I just see an asshole. Combine that with the theme and finale of the previous movie and I care just enough to post about not wanting to see this movie because it's Sunday morning and I'm awake and bored.

      I don't trust Disney offerings to be very good any more. Somewhere along the line, they forgot how to tell a good story.

      • Disney is accused, in the new Snow White, of wrecking their best movie, ever.

        How about the release a sequel to their worst movie ever?

        • Snow White (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:19AM (#65284681)

          My initial reaction to Snow White was it was wrong to have Snow White not be, you know, WHITE. It's not just a name for her, she's supposed to have alabaster-white skin in contrast to her black hair. And 'fairest of them all' meant 'pale' and 'beautiful' simultaneously. The setting is a generic-fantasy version of medieval Western Europe conceived during the Renaissance, after all.

          If you want to have a problem with all that, fine, that's reasonable. But the story is based in cultural cultural assumptions mostly from late 1700s / early 1800s Germany and mixed with bits from around the rest of Europe. There's a lot to correct if you don't want to give a pass to 'whiter is better', and at some point you should probably just stop calling the story 'Snow White' and find another title.

          Then there's the dwarves. FFS, I get Peter Dinklage not being keen on having dwarfs shown as foolish caricatures excluded from human society... but they're fantasy dwarves, not humans. Yes, probably based on ignorant attitudes of Europeans from over 200 years ago regarding humans with dwarfism, but still fantasy dwarves. Not only did they go with stupidly cartoonish CGI, they killed some potential work for actors with dwarfism who aren't named 'Dinklage'. It's not like they'd have been portrayed as circus freaks, the dwarves are decent moral folk with a respectable work ethic. The comedy comes from them being a group of isolated miners with eccentric personalities, not their stature. Do we complain about the parts in the movie Willow? (If 'we' do, please don't tell me, I'm about done with how stupid people can get)

          OK, that's my diatribe for the moment.

          TL;DR: Take Snow White with all its old baggage, or make something new based on the material. Don't just plaster over the bits you find objectionable while pretending it still works as a cohesive whole.

          • and at some point you should probably just stop calling the story 'Snow White' and find another title.

            They thought about it, but "coal black" wasn't well-accepted by focus groups.

            Do we complain about the parts in the movie Willow? (If 'we' do, please don't tell me, I'm about done with how stupid people can get)

            One side, peck!

            • They thought about it, but "coal black" wasn't well-accepted by focus groups.

              You mean like in this 1943 cartoon [wikipedia.org]? Please note that Black audiences at the time loved it and it was White Liberals who forced it to be pulled from circulation because they disapproved of it.
          • by clovis ( 4684 )

            They'll never top this re-telling of the Snow White story:
            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]

          • My initial reaction to Snow White was it was wrong to have Snow White not be, you know, WHITE. It's not just a name for her, she's supposed to have alabaster-white skin in contrast to her black hair. And 'fairest of them all' meant 'pale' and 'beautiful' simultaneously. The setting is a generic-fantasy version of medieval Western Europe conceived during the Renaissance, after all.

            If you want to have a problem with all that, fine, that's reasonable. But the story is based in cultural cultural assumptions mostly from late 1700s / early 1800s Germany and mixed with bits from around the rest of Europe. There's a lot to correct if you don't want to give a pass to 'whiter is better', and at some point you should probably just stop calling the story 'Snow White' and find another title.

            I can agree that they shouldn't have tried all of the "for modern audiences" bullshit. Make a different movie.

            As for Rachel Zegler's so called race, she is a mix of Polish (father) and Columbian (mother) So in my estimation, she can claim either, if race isn't important. I don't care. Physically, she's a beautiful woman. She has a nice singing voice. Although why they have her hairstyle in the movie echoing Lord Farquhar from Shrek, is kinda weird. Her hair is most striking as well. Personality wise, sh

            • Re:Snow White (Score:4, Interesting)

              by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @01:21PM (#65284975)

              \As for Rachel Zegler's so called race, she is a mix of Polish (father) and Columbian (mother) So in my estimation, she can claim either, if race isn't important. I don't care. Physically, she's a beautiful woman.

              It's not about race. Pale is about wealth and power, not having to work out in the sun. Being well tanned, in that "world", is a sign of peasantry and labor. Not what their society considered beauty. Having a tan was a pretty much "red neck" to them.

              • \As for Rachel Zegler's so called race, she is a mix of Polish (father) and Columbian (mother) So in my estimation, she can claim either, if race isn't important. I don't care. Physically, she's a beautiful woman.

                It's not about race. Pale is about wealth and power, not having to work out in the sun. Being well tanned, in that "world", is a sign of peasantry and labor. Not what their society considered beauty. Having a tan was a pretty much "red neck" to them.

                Back then sure. Even up to Victorian times, skin whiteners were sold to remove tans. But today, a suntan is a symbol of having the time and resources to lay out in the sun. That said, there were people complaining about Zegler being not "white." In irony, Latins and Latina is not considered a different race from white, even by people who are obsessed with race.

                • >In irony, Latins and Latina is not considered a different race from white, even by people who are obsessed with race.

                  This varies by culture, presumably, because where I come from there's a reason 'Latina' and 'Latino' exist as words.

                  Mind you, the official RCMP classifications for race last time I checked were "White" and "Not White". Our cities are pretty ethnically mixed. Toronto is just barely over 40% people most would identify as 'white', so "not white" isn't particularly useful as a descriptor.

                  • >In irony, Latins and Latina is not considered a different race from white, even by people who are obsessed with race.

                    This varies by culture, presumably, because where I come from there's a reason 'Latina' and 'Latino' exist as words.

                    Mind you, the official RCMP classifications for race last time I checked were "White" and "Not White". Our cities are pretty ethnically mixed. Toronto is just barely over 40% people most would identify as 'white', so "not white" isn't particularly useful as a descriptor.

                    And all of it seems like a waste of time to those of us (admittedly very few) who believe that race is the biggest social construct ever. I can understand culture differences, and tiny genetic differences, but if the small genetic differences make for human's as races, then Chimps and Bonobos are races of humans as well.

                    Years ago, A scientist I was working with gave a thought experiment to me. Line the entire human race up, from lightest to darkest. Now tell me where the exact dividing line is between ra

                    • Years ago, A scientist I was working with gave a thought experiment to me. Line the entire human race up, from lightest to darkest. Now tell me where the exact dividing line is between races - If race is real, you'll be able to point out (in this case) the last person who is white standing next to the first person who is black. No can do.

                      Actually some "scientists" of the 1930s/40s did precisely that. Body and skull measurements, skin and eye colors measurements, etc. They could numerically quantify a person as belonging to a certain race. They drew a line and millions on the wrong side of that line were exterminated.

                      Interbreeding and mixing to them was not evidence of the same species, it was considered a threat to a superior race.

                      Science, like anything else, can be abused and misused. Politics can corrupt anything, even science. Bewa

                • by drnb ( 2434720 )

                  In irony, Latins and Latina is not considered a different race from white, even by people who are obsessed with race.

                  Latinos are often a mix of European Spanish and Indigenous Peoples, so these racist folks can easily lean non-white.

                  They will may even consider Spanish, Italians, and Irish not properly white due to Catholicism.

                  The Polish considered non-aryan, kinda synonymous with non-white to these folks, due to Slavic heritage. Now toss in Catholicism too,

                  So she can wind up on the racist non-approved list in multiple ways.

                  • In irony, Latins and Latina is not considered a different race from white, even by people who are obsessed with race.

                    Latinos are often a mix of European Spanish and Indigenous Peoples, so these racist folks can easily lean non-white.

                    Plus the Moorish influence we see a lot of in Spanish people. If I were to hazard a guess, Zegler's Columbian side has a good bit of Moor in it.

                    They will may even consider Spanish, Italians, and Irish not properly white due to Catholicism.

                    Utterly bizzarre.

                    The Polish considered non-aryan, kinda synonymous with non-white to these folks, due to Slavic heritage. Now toss in Catholicism too,

                    The lengths to which people demand to classify people as the other would be hilarious if not for we then try to kill them every so often.P

                    So she can wind up on the racist non-approved list in multiple ways.

                    Her presumed race isn't the problem. She really had things pretty well lined up for a successful career. Truly beautiful, talented singer. Not the best actress, but very passable.

                    Then she opened her mouth.

                    W

                    • The "creatives" have often been a bit "communist" leaning. The studio heads being a bit more "capitalistic", reigning in any politics that might offend movie goers. They were quite aware of the need to get people, often of modest means, to voluntarily part with their money. Offending the people inclines them to not do so.

                      The Neo-marxist radicals of the 1960s/70s were quite angry at the majority of their followers leaving the "movement" with the end of the US war in Vietnam. The masses of US youth thought
            • modern movies for modern audiences need their minorities to be fully formed and perfect. The so called "Mary Sue" effect.

              I think this is the fourth time I've heard that phrase redefined.

              The correct use of Mary Sue is a badly written author-insert where the character somehow is able to fix any issue despite no explanation. Though that's not the first version, which is almost never used, which refers to a woman with no character flaws (not a superpowered woman, just one that's a "good girl".) It does not appl

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The cartoon updated the original book to make it more suitable. In the original, the queen eats what she thinks are Snow White's internal organs. Full on cannibalism, or so she thinks. From memory Snow White was not even a teenager when the magic mirror pronounced her the "fairest of them all", so Disney aged her up to 14... Which still isn't great, especially considering that the prince's age varies by estimation but is at least 18, possibly as high as 31.

            The point I want to make is that the original adapt

          • by hawk ( 1151 )

            That anyone thinks that there is, or should be, *any* crossover between dwarves and humans with dwarfism is bewildering.

            The only thing in common between the two is that both are shorter than the height of the average human, leading to the name of the former to describe the ladder.

            We'll let pass that dwarves don't even *have* mothers other than the rock of the earth, as even the great JRR Tolkien got this one wrong.

            Are we next going to demand that all elves be played by actors with Williams-Beuren syndrome,

          • Don't know, I thought the Seven Dwarves were supposed to be cheerful, hard-working, social, generous with their hospitality and empathetic. Is the new version throwing shade on them?

        • Their worst movie ever is The Black Hole.

          Imagine how scary they would make Maximillian in a remake.
    • Re:Not hyped here (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:45AM (#65284701) Homepage

      The Ares trailer exhibits a Michael Bay level of loyalty to the canon: all hat and no cattle.

      I was disappointed by the visuals in Legacy. The world inside a computer is _supposed_ to be all hard edges, as the original movie depicted. And the plot was just weak. And now Ares appears to be saying that well, the real world is just a simulation so we can project the Legacy computer world into it and break all the laws of physics. How hackneyed.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I'm not sure it follows that the real world is a simulation, it's just that the scanning laser thingy works in reverse too. It's obviously just made up nonsense with no basis in real physics, right? You can't physically disintegrate someone into a computer, have them live in there, and then rematerialize them later.

        I'm not holding out much hope for it. I too was disappointed with Legacy. The grid lost its other-worldliness.

        • "Not disintegrating, Alan -- digitizing. While the laser is dismantling the molecular structure of the object, the computer maps out a holographic model of it. The molecules themselves are suspended in the laser beam."

          Flynn in the electronic world was the "holographic model," not the physical molecules.

        • I'm not sure it follows that the real world is a simulation

          Light cycle's wall trail slicing a police car in half?

          The light cycles existed and worked the way they did because it was an arcade game Flynn wrote.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            But equally, once digitised Flynn can exist inside a 1980 computer. It's not that kind of sci-fi.

      • The world inside a computer is _supposed_ to be all hard edges, as the original movie depicted.

        On an arcade machine sure, but Tron Legacy clearly ran with RTX on.

      • And now Ares appears to be saying that well, the real world is just a simulation so we can project the Legacy computer world into it and break all the laws of physics.

        Tron Legacy already did that. It ended with Quorra (an algorithm) coming to the real world.

      • Agreed - The original Tron had 90 degree light cycle turns because that is believable for a computer of the time. It was mimicking the old SNAKE game that you see on Apple II computers.

        Tron: Legacy then comes up with light cycles that bank and turn smoothly, jump into the air, bounce on impact, and spiral down a ramp... Meh. I can see that in the real world - I don't need to be digitized into a computer to see it.
    • From the preview, it resembles a kaiju movie, so this may be your last chance to see one until about 2027.

    • Not a fan of Leto either, but let's be honest, he doesn't automatically ruin a film. Blade Runner 2049 had him in for ten minutes chewing the scenery and yet it still ended up being one of the best movies I've seen in the last decade or two.

  • I hope they have a much more compelling explanation for how the stuff from the grid world functions in our world just like it did on the grid than I suspect they actually will have, because I'm the type of person that needs that to be satisfied. And it had better damned well not be "this is a simulation too" if only because it's lazy.

  • Saw Snow White. I enjoyed it and feel there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I think that 99% of the people criticizing it have not seen it. So, I believe it's negative reception is unfair.

    I think pretty much anything Disney makes from now on will be unfairly maligned. They should just stop. They have no market, as the haters have won.

    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:38AM (#65284697)

      Saw Snow White. I enjoyed it and feel there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I think that 99% of the people criticizing it have not seen it. So, I believe it's negative reception is unfair.

      I think pretty much anything Disney makes from now on will be unfairly maligned. They should just stop. They have no market, as the haters have won.

      Obviously some people will like it. But for a presumed children's offering, it might not have elements that a lot of people with children find all that great.

      I find it odd that the failure of the movie is somehow the fault of YouTubers Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic, as some have claimed - the so called haters.

      If this was a great movie, people would ignore them and go to it, making it a successful moneymaker. Putting aside the Star of the movie injecting her politics into the movie for a moment, and being a bit of an asshat, there are issues with the storytelling. There are definitely issues with the cinematography. Part of that is the number of reshoots that are obvious reshoots, leading to first order errors. A large part of the problem was with Disney refusing to give parts tailor made for little people, and using Some pretty disturbing CGI for the acceptable version of the dwarves.

      Do you believe that the little people actors and actresses are haters because they were frozen out of playing as the hero of the movie?

      And changing the core message of the original - which is that love and kindness will be rewarded in the end, the new message is a strong young woman becoming the leader she was told she could be. During the extensive re-shoots they tried to graft a little bit of love story, not all that successful.

      And that doesn't resonate with a lot of people.

      Elephant in the room time. And yeah, Zegler managing to tie the movie to the Israel vs Hamas conflict, eventually having her co star, who is an Israeli citizen, needing 24/7 bodyguards for her and her children. Disney paid for that. And Disney flew a producer to New York to try to convince her to retract her message to no avail. Eventually they hired a social media person to attempt to filter Zegler's commentary.

      But she said she didn't like the 1937 cartoon, calling the prince a stalker, and the movie now not a love story, and calling the original "Weird...weird."

      This is where Disney has fouled up. If you have your star being a destructive influence who cannot keep their yap shut, and causes trouble for the film and her co-star. And her problematic persona made for issues on set as well. And that is a real pity. She is a gorgeous young woman who has a really good voice. She probably destroyed her acting career. She's been dropped from a few movies already. She'll almost certainly not be cast in much.

      Point is, while there is a litany of Issues for "Snow White" live action reboot, the movie probably would still underperform, but she surely didn't help.

      • I think the use of CGI dwarves was more true to the the original than would have been live actors. And, BTW, nobody needs real dwarves to create little people in a movie, as witnessed by hobbits. The original dwarves had facial features that reflected their personalities of Sleepy and Grumpy and so forth, which I think was likely easier and more emphatic in CGI.

        The star running her mouth may have been the real fly in the ointment, but I had never heard of her before, nor anything she said, so evaluated

        • And I think it wrong to act to boycott or hate a movie on the basis of what one person involved in it says or does.

          Unfortunately, pop culture has moved beyond just entertaining people, and becoming real life for many. Beyonce teaming up with former First Lady Michelle O'Blama to they to "Ban Bossy" (not to have woman not be bossy, just not allowing us to say that) Taylor Swift and the Democrats believing she could swing an election. There are other examples. And actors and actresses getting not getting parts for being a pain in the ass is nothing new.

          But there is the question of "boycott". If a person simply doesn't

    • I enjoyed it and feel there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

      I enjoy a lot of things but I don't let it cloud my judgement to the point where I say there is nothing wrong with them. There were objectively many things wrong with it, things so fundamental that the writers themselves know they were doing something wrong - specifically they were re-writing and re-shooting parts of the story which resulted in a narrative that was not just a disjointed mess, it it showed plots and setups that were simply dropped without conclusion.

      Change the narrative, sure. It's their art

    • by quall ( 1441799 )

      Ok. And why do people hate it? Is it a result of a coin toss?

      Can you really blame people for not even wanting to waste their money at this point? Those 99% who haven't watched it are probably assuming that it's similar to 99% of Disney's previous films and tv shows, which were utter garbage and filled with identity politics. Are you saying that this film is not filled with their political allegory? Because that's not what Disney or the actors have been telling everyone. That's why it's gotten such a huge ne

  • Dude, AI beings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:45AM (#65284645)
    Is not the preferred nomenclature. Artificial-Americans, please.
  • Tron vs. The Matrix (Score:5, Interesting)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:24AM (#65284689)
    In the trailer, we see red light cycles activate their jet walls during a car chase, and a police car drives into the wall cutting the car in half. We also see recognizers and gliders in what we assume is the real world.

    This already bugs me because The Matrix tells us that a computer system is governed by rules. In the computer, some rules can be bent, others can be broken. Not so in the real world. In the world of Tron, you could use Encom's laser to materialize a program into the real world (Although there are problems with that - Where would the molecules come from?), but just because you can rez up a light cycle in the real world doesn't mean that it would work the same as it does in a computer system.
    • What I mainly noticed in the trailer is a lot of eye candy and not a whiff of a plot. I love the original TRON. The sequel was pretty mediocre. This looks kind of stupid.
      • This looks like a dumb action flick. There's nothing wrong with that, but it isn't what I would hope for from Tron.

      • Well, it *IS* just an early Teaser - You're not supposed to get an Idea of the plot yet. Also, how many other movies were ruined because there was TOO MUCH shown in the trailer?
    • In the trailer, we see red light cycles activate their jet walls during a car chase, and a police car drives into the wall cutting the car in half. We also see recognizers and gliders in what we assume is the real world. This already bugs me because The Matrix tells us that a computer system is governed by rules. In the computer, some rules can be bent, others can be broken. Not so in the real world. In the world of Tron, you could use Encom's laser to materialize a program into the real world (Although there are problems with that - Where would the molecules come from?), but just because you can rez up a light cycle in the real world doesn't mean that it would work the same as it does in a computer system.

      I expect as this movie release draws closer to get a lot of, "Turn off brain and enjoy" style lectures. The trailer they put out is pretty "look at the flashing lights," with zero hint that any effort at all has been put into plot or character development. Seems pretty par for the course for modern films.

  • by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:48AM (#65284703)

    I was young when Tron came out and it was mind-blowing. Of course, looking back on it, it is pretty dated. But, for the time, it was amazing. And had a decent plot, action, acting, visuals, etc.

    Several decades later, I really enjoyed Tron: Legacy and think it was under-rated and did a great job of building on the original Tron. But a lot has changed since then, and I am not sure Disney won't ruin it now. The Tron franchise continuation deserves a good, original, and complex plot with excellent acting and not just a bunch of effects surrounding identity politics.

  • Much like Tron Legacy, I expect it will be a fun, action-packed movie but won't blow my mind like the original Tron.
    Still, I'll be taking off October 10, 2025 to watch this.

  • by chas.williams ( 6256556 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @10:17AM (#65284715)
    Maybe some GenX will show up at the theaters.
  • I was a kid in the 80s and as far as I remember no one talked about Tron, or even knew that it existed. Maybe it had more mindshare among cinema enthusiasts than among its target audience.
    • Nobody want to remember what really happened - you were 12, saw it, never spoke of it again (similar to Star Trek - The Motion Picture).
    • I don't know that it was influential in the 80s, but a lot (probably even most!) of the kids who saw it in the 80s survived to adulthood and some of them went on to make movies. The movie was not very successful at the box office initially (it was expensive to make and not particularly well-received) but it was the first not-fully-animated film to be so based on VFX, and also had the most CG of any film at the time for obvious reasons.

      The sequel we've gotten so far was not great, though it was decent. I'm e

    • by drnb ( 2434720 )

      I was a kid in the 80s and as far as I remember no one talked about Tron, or even knew that it existed. Maybe it had more mindshare among cinema enthusiasts than among its target audience.

      No. its following was among computer nerds and video gamers. Note that in 1982 this was a small group. Nothing like today.

    • Today's generation forget that 'cult film' means that only about 200 people saw it or could see it (I exaggerate slightly but you get the point). In 1982 there was barely a video rental industry - Blockbuster didn't open until 1985. That means unless your buddy happened to have rich parents, you probably didn't see it until it eventually and rarely got shown on television
      • To really frame this, it came out the same time that E.T. The Extra Terrestrial came out.

        My family saw both in one night at a drive-in theater.

        Nothing did well vs E.T.

        It was a really bad time for any scifi that wasnt E.T.
    • I was a kid in the 80s and as far as I remember no one talked about Tron, or even knew that it existed.

      The influence being discussed is not on viewers or the general public but rather on the film industry itself. There its influence is unquestionable. It's held up along side Star Wars IV in defining a new direction for what is possible on the screen with the aid of computers. It wasn't the first film to use CGI, but earlier films put great effort into hiding its use, whereas Tron celebrated the ability to incorporate computer graphics into the film in a hyperstylized way, and it frankly blew the minds of Hol

  • "Joachim RÃnning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil)" ... Those are not film credits I would be waving around.

    Dmtnt: 3 of 10 and widely regarded as the worst of a beloved franchise
    Maleficent: 3 of 10

  • by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Sunday April 06, 2025 @11:37AM (#65284833)

    All the effects, nostalgia, and big name actors are window dressing. If you don't have a good story, you have nothing.

    Disney does not know how to tell a good story anymore.

    The trailer tells me nothing about the story. Just references to the old movie.

  • Are the Disney people unable to come up with new ideas, or just unwilling to do so? If the latter, they should really try something new: their penchant for rehashing old stuff is losing them lots of money anyway - I don't think they can do much worse trying new ideas.
    • Define "new idea". Do you see this particular story written down anywhere? This is a sequel, not a remake. If you want to talk about a lack of new ideas then look at the live action cartoons. Just because something is set in the same universe as something else doesn't mean it doesn't contain new ideas.

      their penchant for rehashing old stuff is losing them lots of money anyway

      I'll be generous and limit the results to box office takings from movies only released the past 5 years:
      $2,748,242,781 - Avengers: Endgame
      $1,698,831,782 - Inside Out 2
      $1,661,454,403 - The Lion King (live actio

    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Are the Disney people unable to come up with new ideas, or just unwilling to do so?

      I'm sure Disney has people able to come up with new ideas; getting the Disney corporation to risk a blockbuster-film-sized amount of money on a new idea, OTOH -- there's the rub. When you're working for a behemoth profit-driven corporate machine, the last thing you want to do is take a gamble on something new and unknown; especially when you're sitting on a huge amount of IP that you can simply rehash instead.

      "Nobody ever got fired for going with IBM" is now "Nobody ever got fired for greenlighting Yet Ano

  • Tron used to be about computers. The sequels have so little related to computing now that they are just generic science fiction flicks.

    Highly stylized science fiction, but none of the parallels between the real world and the personas within the machine that made the original so interesting.

  • Back then, a way younger me was fascinated about the "computer world" in TRON as I (and many others) were just entering the worlds of both video games (arcades) and home computers and learning about CPUs, ROM and RAM, I/O, interrupts, etc. so to see this visualized was just magical and you were a user too! That feeling can never be replicated, to much younger me it was akin to seeing Star Wars for the first time. Movies are about evoking emotions first and foremost, and "tech demos" much further down the li
    • by sls1j ( 580823 )
      This was me. I was around 7 or 8 when I saw it. Our family had gotten our first computer. I think a VIC-20 and this movie fired my imagination. It was part of what pushed me into computer science. Loved the movie as a kid. I'm almost afraid to watch the movie again to ruin the childhood nostalgia. Definitely won't watch the sequel. Star Wars was utterly ruin for me by the first sequel.

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